As We Fall
by Quill Angel
Summary: "Something cracks inside Sherlock. He can feel it everywhere, fault lines erupting on every inch of skin, the tight membrane of his body breaking apart. Suddenly he can't breathe." Sherlock can understand the poetry of it. Soul mates, eternal love, the gaps between your fingers where another's will fit in perfectly. Such things, however, are meant for other people. (Omegaverse)
1. Ardebit

OKAY GUYS I HONESTLY DON'T KNOW WHAT I AM DOING.

So I am finally dipping my toe into the Omegaverse like I have wanted to do for AGES, since my other two fics are almost over. I have a plot thought out for this and everything, so I'm not flailing around and writing whatever pops into my head. (well, mostly) PLEASE tell me what you think, because I've never written an omegafic before and I hope I do it right. Well, in any case, the best part about this trope is that there are LITERALLY NO RULES YAY.

Beware of dubious consent. I mean seriously. Epically dubious consent. And biology issues. Gender roles. (like literally made up biology, I kid you not.) Warnings will be added for each chapter. Please read them carefully before you continue. PM me if you have any questions. :)

Not beta-ed as of now because I was too lazy.

Also, no idea when this fic will be updated. I'll try to be as regular as possible but I've got college starting up and I will be extremely busy but I WILL NOT LEAVE THIS FIC HANGING.

* * *

:1:

" _ **Dear God,' she prayed, 'let me be something every minute of every hour of my life."**_

It's the utter weakness of it that Sherlock detests, most of all. The knowledge, or the lack of. It is the fact that he is being stripped of his claim over his own body while 'biological imperative' stamps its ugly bruises across skin that should be his and his alone. He hates the way his mind is shattered to pieces, how he is reduced to pure instinct, bands that tighten their grip across his body and flop him down, gasping like a giant fish caught in a net of self loathing.

 _Heatwetwet, wantwantneedneed, please please please._

A writhing, begging mess, everyone else's to touch and to claim and to fuck.

It's who he is, it's how he's been made, and this is what he hates most of all. He could rip apart his own skin, tear his own hair off, and yet, and yet he will remain the same, nothing will change. He's done it before, he remembers, when he was desperate and frustrated, weeping and pleading for something that he knows he _doesn't want,_ not really, he's done it; traced jagged red lines into pale, unblemished skin, pitying himself, hating himself, wanting to die.

It would be better, he always thinks, to die. If only he could. If only he could close his eyes and tell his body, _that's it, I'm done, I don't want this._ But this, this fucking _thing,_ it is already far gone beyond his control, spinning out of his reach, burning and burning and making him scream because this is a thirst that he must quench and yet he hates every moment of it.

 _But it's my body,_ he defends helplessly.

According to the rest of the world, it isn't, not _really._

Hungry eyes follow him, wherever he goes. Lewd, intent gazes that seem to burn holes into his skin when he walks down the street, a shop, the fucking bus stand.

It never stops.

Maybe they're waiting, he thinks. They're waiting for me to get down on my knees and beg them to fuck me. Take me. They know I will, because I can't help it. And he knows, deep down, in the pit of his stomach, that when it happens to him, he'll do whatever they want him to. He won't even think twice. Instinct, pure, primal, basic instinct will have him so far beyond the reach of his intellectual capacity that his legs will spread like an automatic reaction. Flick the switch, and watch the omega squirm.

It must be so much fun for them, he thinks. To watch him struggle. What is it like, on the other side of the wall? That privileged side of humanity where you can walk without the thought nagging at the back of your head that this respite is just a fleeting whisper before the fire consumes you again, burns you until you are charred to a crisp, nothing but a pile of ashes.

He is smart, he reminds himself. He is smarter than the whole lot of them combined. He can pick them apart in seconds, ravage their so called sense of self-respect and dignity, rattle their propriety until they are nothing but a whimpering mess. I can do it, he tells himself. He would, if he wanted, watch _them_ try to stumble and pick up the pieces, what then? How does it feel _then_?

This venom, this acid, the bitterness of the _unfairness_ of it all, it eats away at him like a plague. It's not healthy, he tells himself, to be jealous of normal, boring people.

But then, maybe it's not so bad, being normal.

Being different is so exhausting.

* * *

The first time it happens, he is barely fifteen.

His limbs have always felt too long on his body, even more so now. His skin feels spread over his bones, thin membrane stretched over his skeleton that could rip at any moment. It would be interesting to see what his body is made of. He knows the science of it, blood and marrow and muscle. Maybe there's something more. Something special. Sherlock has always thought he was better, because he was smarter than everyone else.

Victor had moved in next door barely four months ago, male alpha, and Sherlock was curious. Victor didn't think he was weird. When Sherlock told him that he was conducting an experiment on the effects of citric acid on decomposing pig feet, Victor laughed and ruffled his hair and told him that he was clever. It was nice, hearing that. Someone telling him he was clever. He tried to get people to say it when he was younger. Tried to impress them. He realised too late that broken bones weren't worth the price.

Mummy never said that, she was always tired and exasperated, staying at home, cooking, cleaning. She didn't really need to, Sherlock wanted to tell her. He knows they're wealthy, she could ask the kitchen staff.

" _Mother, you are being illogical. We have two cooks who are capable of cooking a decent meal, I fail to see why you must take on the task yourself."_

" _It's what an omega does, dear. She looks after her family._ "

What a horrible thing, Sherlock thought. Being reduced to a caretaker because of what lies between your legs.

Victor is seventeen. He wants to study Chemistry at Oxford next year. Sherlock thinks this is a vastly dull thing to do.

"How _tedious,_ " he informs him, still managing to lift his chin disdainfully even though he is lying flat on his back in Victor's garden. They're supposed to be watching the clouds. It's perfectly boring, but Victor is the only person Sherlock has ever spoken to in such a long time and he doesn't want to offend him by telling him that.

"It'll be interesting," Victor defends. Sherlock considers his statement dubiously.

"It will be _boring,_ " he corrects after a while. Victor thinks for a moment. The sunlight catches in his copper coloured hair.

"I'll just be two years ahead of you, you could study it too, after you graduate," he advises.

Sherlock doesn't know why, but he likes this idea.

"Studying chemistry wouldn't be so bad," he decides.

They lie in silence then, Sherlock composing a piece of music in his head because he likes the weather now, likes the way the cool wind ruffles his hair, the way it plays across his skin. It eases the stiffness of his body, the way his flesh seems to be stretched too tight. Like a string pulled taunt across an instrument. The sound is disjointed if you play it then, it doesn't come out right.

Sherlock hasn't come out too right, either.

At least Victor doesn't call him weird.

It happens suddenly that day, insidious in its ferocity. One moment Sherlock is almost calm and relaxed, breathing summery air while Victor asks him questions time to time, like what he thinks about that murder that happened in Bristol yesterday, or whether he found out how much time it takes for saliva to coagulate after death. The next moment he feels hot, too hot, far too hot.

His skin is burning. Is he burning? Fuck, he must be. Sherlock's body gives an odd sort of spasm, and he is suddenly far too aware of everything. There is sweat trickling down his neck, dampness on his forehead, his hairline, burning heat everywhere. His clothes, fuck his clothes, too much, everything is too much.

He gasps, sitting up, suddenly on his fours, his body heaving. Something is wrong, something is very wrong, he thinks, why are my pants wet, why, what is it, oh— _fuck._ He needs—he needs, needs something—his hand almost instinctively goes to his crotch, it would feel better, if he could just— _fuck,_ his body jerks again. What is this _smell,_ oh my god, want it, want it, crap—Victor—

Victor sits up in a second, Sherlock can't see him, he is dimly aware that his palms and knees are against the grass, his arse raised in the air, and this position, it feels right, something, he needs, he needs, _oh god,_ his hand is still somewhere at his crotch, and he jerks against it, _oh bloody hell_ , it sends a spasm of electricity arching down his spine, he's hard, so hard, he's never been this hard before—

"Sherlock—oh _fuck,_ " Victor is inches away from him, he can smell the thick, heady scent of alpha pheromones rising from his skin in response to his spreading heat, and Sherlock _wants,_ wants him against him, he smells so fucking _good,_ he smells like something Sherlock should have inside of him, rubbing up against him, smearing his scent all over him, claiming him. That sounds good, so damn good, Victor should just grab him—and _oh—_ there is a dull ache somewhere down below, he's barely aware of it, just this horrible burning, and he _knows,_ he knows that if Victor just, if he could _just,_ he'd feel so much better.

Victor does, he jerks, reaches out with his hand and grabs his elbow, making Sherlock lose his balance as his chin hit the grass hard, it must have hurt but Sherlock barely notices it. In a second Victor has his arm around his stomach and Sherlock is in his lap between spread thighs, and Victor is sniffing at his neck, fingers digging into his hip painfully. Sherlock whines, he can feel something hard against his arse, _erection, cock, knot, good, need it, need it, please, yes._

"Fucking, _fuck,_ Sherlock, you're, god, _fuck,_ mine, mine," Victor growls, and Sherlock whimpers, a helpless, pathetic sound, the edges of his vision sizzling, red hot, fire, burning, hot, _hot;_ he grinds his arse against Victor desperately, only aware of this aching, blinding need to have Victor inside him, pushing, thrusting- _fuck, yes,_ that's what he needs right now; he throws his head back against Victor's shoulder, exposing his throat, submitting himself, gasping. Victor's lips are around the shell of his ear, sucking, his cock rubbing frantically against his backside, his hand sliding down his thigh, the denim sopping wet and sticking to his skin. It should be uncomfortable, it must be, _damn,_ but he doesn't think of it—why isn't Victor inside him, yet? He should be slamming into him, ripping off his clothes, _oh god_ these clothes, why hadn't he realised before? They are chaffing against his skin, hot, too hot—

And then he feels it, the slice of Victor's teeth against his neck, and it all slams into painful focus then; _teeth, bite, bond, wait, fuck no, no no no_ —

"Get _off,"_ he screams, panic flaring in his chest, white-hot arousal still churning between his legs, flames licking his entire body, it's so confusing, he wants it, wants Victor inside him _fuck,_ but, no, no, he doesn't—what's going on? What is happening to his body? He's confused, he's so confused, and Victor is reaching for the waistband of his jeans, the touch of his fingers against the fevered bare skin of his hips making him keen like a puppy, a wailing, desperate noise clawing out of his throat while his legs spread wantonly of their own accord. "No, no, I—can't, Victor—don't, please," he gasps, Victor's hand is slipping under his jeans, _oh god—_

"You smell, damn it, so good, _so good,_ I need to, bloody hell, Sherlock, you never—never told me, I—I'll knot you, fuck, I'll knot you _right here,_ mount you like you want it, you sweet little— _fuck—"_

Shouts. Someone is shouting, saying something, Sherlock can't hear what they're saying. Rosewater and wildflower mixing with the heavy peach scent of alpha, who is it? Someone, anyone, could take Victor off of him—but, wait, no, no, he wants Victor, wants Victor to pin him down and spread over him and fuck him right here, doesn't he? Oh _god,_ it hurts now, it hurts, he's burning up, someone make it stop, make it stop, _please,_ can't—

"Victor, _Victor,_ stop!" someone is shouting, a female voice, and Victor is wrenched away from him, the cloying heat gone, and Sherlock whines, he actually _whines,_ because why did they do that, why, _why,_ he needed him, needed his knot inside of him— _god,_ yes. He falls limply back, as if the only thing holding him upright were Victor's tanned, sinewy arms. Grass against his back, the bleached blue of the sky above him. Sherlock gasps, another horrible seizure-like _thing_ rocking his entire body, he grinds against the grass, should feel something, _please oh god,_ he's crying, he registers faintly, sobbing like a baby. There is wetness against his cheeks. The water should evaporate, because his skin is burning hot, it must be.

"Sherlock! Sherlock, get up, get _up,_ Dad! Dad get Victor _out,_ " a face swims in front of his vision. Tanned skin, copper hair like Victor. His sister, he thinks, cousin? Someone, but the scent is wrong—omega, not alpha. She's not what he needs right now. But she touches him anyway, wraps her arms around his waist and hauls him up. She's strong, she has him standing upright. Sherlock falls against her side, seemingly incapable of supporting his own weight. His head lolls against her shoulder. She wraps her arm around his waist, and they move. "Lock the gate, what is _wrong_ with you-oi, _fuck off!_ " she shouts at someone behind her.

"I-I can't, don't want—something else," he babbles something incoherently. He doesn't remember. His jeans are cold and sticky, damp, something is still running down his thighs, slippery, warm. The heated edge of his mind clears somewhat, sanity trying to make its pathetic return. Victor's sister is opening a door, and he feels cool air against his damp forehead. He shivers, his legs are freezing because of the wetness.

"It's fine, everything's fine," she tries to soothe him, but _how_ can she soothe him like this, he knows what he needs and he needs it _now,_ because _oh god—_

"Fuck," he moans, clawing at his abdomen, where a confusing mix of pain and gut-wrenching need sends another spasm rocking his body. It's so bewildering, he remembers thinking, everything is so bewildering. "Please," he hears himself begging. What is he begging for? Someone to fuck him, probably. He knows it will make him better. So certain. A knot inside him and this-this _desire,_ this writhing, messy _want_ will subside. Logic, he reminds himself. It's pure, cold, logic.

"Shhh," she soothes again, and Sherlock wants to claw her eyes out. He might have tried, he doesn't remember. She pushes him inside a room, and there is something soft under his bottom now, springy and light. Bed. Cotton. The clean scent of lemon freshener, her honey-rose fragrance merging with it. Pleasant, but wrong, _wrong,_ not what he wants.

"What's happening?" he rasps. "I can't—can't be happening. Don't want it, oh _fuck,_ make it stop, can you make it stop?" he curls his fingers into his sweat-drenched hair, pulls.

"I'm sorry," she tells him, the bright blue of her eyes burning into his own. She sounds genuinely apologetic. "I can't. I'll, Sherlock? Listen. I'll get your brother, he'll take you home. Keep you safe, with your parents. I'm sorry about that, Victor didn't—he didn't mean to, I promise."

"I don't _care,_ " he whinges. "I just—just _want—_ fuck this, fuck you," he falls back against the cool sheets, curling into himself, trying to save himself from the heat burning his flesh away. "I don't want this," he whispers, to himself or to her, he doesn't know.

When Sherlock thought he was something special, this isn't what he had in mind.

Somewhere, he thinks, the universe is laughing at him.

* * *

He tried to look at himself, he remembers. He wants to see what he looks like, because it feels as if his skin has been ripped off and replaced with something new and unfamiliar, Sherlock runs his fingers down his body, between his legs where it is wet and slippery, since no one else will touch him, right now, even though he begs. He remembers begging, most of all. Sobbing. Sherlock has never cried before, but this time he is reduced to whimpering mess of tears and snot and twisting need. He hates it, he hates it, hates _himself._

It's so hard getting up from the bed, exhaustion has turned his muscles to lead. When he reaches the mirror, the face staring back frightens him. His eyes are wild and feral, eclipsed by black, only a thin ring of grey-blue-green visible behind his enlarged pupils. His hair is insane and tangled, sticking to his damp forehead, sweaty curls plastered to his nape. His cheeks are pink and flushed from fever and his lips are chapped because of how much he has been biting them. The biting helps, helps him from crying out or moaning. It's pitiful, he thinks, _he_ is pitiful, a pathetic, sopping thing that can't even control its own impulses.

Sherlock wills his mind to function again, but another contraction rips through his body and he ends up keening and writhing on the floor instead.

* * *

"It can be a confusing time, your first heat," the beta doctor explains. Sherlock wants to throw a vase at him. What the fuck does _he_ know? Instead he chooses to pin him down with his hostile gaze and make him aware of how much Sherlock detests him.

"But it will get better," he reassures him. Runs his hand through close-cropped black hair and levels him with a steady green gaze. Sherlock hates him. "The intensity should decrease by your next time, over time it will stabilize, and you'll be able to control it somewhat." He smiles at him, as if everything is alright, as if Sherlock's life hasn't been turned upside down and shaken of its contents.

"I'm not supposed to control it, though am I," Sherlock counters, allowing the bitterness to creep into his voice. "Because if I could control it then I wouldn't need an alpha to knot me, and then what good would I be, hmm?" he snarls out the last bit, and the doctor flinches.

"Sherlock," Mycroft warns from where he is leaning against the door, surveying the proceedings with detached interest. Sherlock ignores him. The doctor ignores Sherlock.

"I'll write out a prescription for you, these tablets will help with the cramps," he explains, writing down hurriedly on a slip of paper. "Vitamins and supplements, you'll be taking these for about a year—" he drones on and on, Sherlock blocks him out. He doesn't care. Instead he stares outside where rain is pattering steadily against the window.

The door is shut and the doctor leaves. Sherlock is still staring outside, knees brought up to his chin, arms wrapped around his shins. He feels the bed dip as Mycroft sits next to him, his fruity citrus scent wafting up his suddenly far more sensitive nose.

"How do you feel?" he asks.

"Like I've been pounded by a meat cleaver," Sherlock says immediately.

"Poetic," Mycroft observes, and there is nothing except the sound of the rain outside, the steady _drip-drip-drip_ of it on the leaves. Mycroft says nothing, because perhaps there is nothing to say. He came in, a few times, never for more than a minute, fortunately never to the sight of Sherlock humping the mattress. But he never stayed. Being his brother, he wasn't consumed by the all-encompassing desire to fuck him, but it still made him uncomfortable in his presence in a way that he had never been before.

Sherlock hates change.

"You'll be fine," Mycroft says, breaking the silence. "It's not the end of the world, Sherlock, you will still do the things you do, say the things you say."

Sherlock laughs; a harsh, bitter sound. "You don't even believe that yourself," he scoffs.

"I believe that you won't let something as mundane as biology dictate your life." His fingers drum against his knee.

It's true, Sherlock knows, and an oddly flattering thing for Mycroft to say. But somehow Sherlock can't shake the terrible feeling that the entire universe is tipping on its axis.

"And yet it will," he says, his voice surprisingly even, although he feels the urge to scream and rage and shout. "They won't even notice my brain anymore, it barely matters that I'm more clever than every single one of them. I'm just—just—I don't even know what I am." The idiotic sentiment of the last bit, lashed out in bitterness, frustrates him. Sherlock could claw his eyes out.

"You'll do what you want to do," Mycroft insists. "I'll make sure nobody stops you." Before Sherlock can think of a way to respond to that statement, Mycroft sweeps out the door.

* * *

Victor comes a few days after his heat is over.

Sherlock can smell him from upstairs, from where he is bent over the nitric solution, pipette still between fingers. His scent assaults his nose and Sherlock drops the pipette, gripping the edge of his table, hard, until his knuckles turn white.

It isn't arousal, _god,_ not anymore, it's shame.

He feels his cheek heat up with the memory, can hear the sounds of his own whimpers and groans in his ear, the ghost of Victor's mouth against his neck. He doesn't want to see him, doesn't want to be reminded of his own inability, his weakness.

He can hear shouting down below, and curiosity gets the better of him. He opens the door, the metal of the doorknob cold against his fingers. He opens it just a crack, so he can listen to the conversation. He has to strain his ears a bit, no one seems to be shouting anymore.

-"learnt _anything_ in school, Victor? You're hardly a child anymore, I'm sure you're aware of what you're supposed to do in this kind of a situation." Mycroft's voice, firm, cool, polite, cutting through formality like a shard of ice.

"Mycroft, you _know_ how it is, you can't expect him to—" his mother's voice.

-"I can expect him to restrain himself from manhandling my brother," Mycroft spits out. "Do you think father would do that, grab an omega that was vulnerable and attempt to rape—"

"I wasn't trying to _rape_ him, the fuck is—"

" _Language,_ Mr. Trevor, or I will escort you out of this house myself."

"I had no idea, you know how it is, you know what happens, Mr. Holmes. I'm just here to apologise, —"

"What I _know,_ " Mycroft cuts in, "Is that I can control myself long enough, at least, to get away from him, like any _mature_ young alpha your age would do, and tell someone who would _take care_ of him."

Sherlock closes his eyes and breathes through his nose, the words running over and over in his head. That's it, he thinks, they're already convinced that I can't take care of myself, that I need someone to look after me. Vulnerable. Weak. Helpless.

"—realise it's no excuse, I agree, but at least he's apologising, I think it's only fair to allow him to go, Mycroft. Sherlock wouldn't appreciate—"

"Sherlock would appreciate not having to see him after he attempted to do what he did, mother. But very well. Sherlock is not a child, I'm not going to decide who he can or cannot see. Go, and if he doesn't want to talk to you, turn around and leave or I will have someone escort you out."

He hears mumbled thanks, and shuts the door hurriedly. Listens to the sound of footsteps coming up. His stomach churns uncomfortably. He doesn't want to look at him, he thinks, not because he hates him, but because he will hate _himself_ more if he does.

Mycroft would be one of the very few people to blame Victor for what he did, and he barely did anything at all. But Sherlock shudders when he thinks of what might have happened if his sister hadn't pulled him off.

Knock against the door, Victor's scent; cherries and something like wood. "Sherlock." He doesn't sound like someone particularly remorseful, Sherlock thinks, he sounds like someone who believes himself to be carrying out a great service.

Sherlock's fingers still against the metal. It would be a sign of weakness if he didn't open the door, as if he was ashamed to look at Victor, as if this was somehow his fault.

"Sherlock," Victor calls again, his voice sounding weary.

He opens the door then, and meets his eyes almost defiantly. It's difficult, it feels like a physical thing. But he does it. Victor has always been an inch or two taller than him, he stares down at him, and Sherlock raises an eyebrow in question. Victor's nostrils flare, his pupils dilate only the slightest—Sherlock steps back, to put some distance between them. He doesn't want Victor to think that he is anything near the dripping mess he was a week ago. He is in control of his body now, his mind, if he touches him, Sherlock will punch him, he will.

"Can I come in?" he asks.

Sherlock makes a gesture towards the room, Victor steps in and closes the door behind him. It makes Sherlock uncomfortable, makes the hair at the back of his neck prickle. He says nothing.

Victor raises his head a bit and sniffs the air discretely. His gaze drops back to Sherlock and his eyes rake his body, not slowly or salaciously, but still in a way that makes Sherlock feel oddly exposed, like he is a science experiment laid out for poking and prodding. Victor has never looked at him like this before, like he's something that should be his.

"You smell, god, you smell different," Victor states, running a hand through his copper hair. He's wearing a blue shirt and jeans that lie low on his hips. Sherlock used to think Victor was aesthetically pleasing, he'd wonder fleetingly if his mouth was as soft as it looked. Now he wants nothing more than to back away from him, to flee.

"Glad you noticed," Sherlock says stiffly.

The corner of Victor's mouth twitches. " _Good,_ " he clarifies, as if Sherlock is an idiot. "You smell good. Better."

"I smell like something you'd like to fuck," Sherlock spits out, before he can stop himself. But he doesn't regret it.

Victor raises his eyebrows. "I—well." He clears his throat uncomfortably. "You can hardly blame me for that, I mean—you don't know, Sherlock, you don't know what it was like."

Sherlock represses the urge to slap him and instead he snorts disdainfully. " _I_ don't know what it was like?" he snaps. "I was the one going through heat, _I_ was the one reduced to a slavering mess at your feet, and you think _I_ don't know," Sherlock doesn't realise he's come closer to Victor , in his frustration. Doesn't realise until Victor's face is a centimetre away and then he tries to step back in panic, but Victor's fingers encircle his wrist and Sherlock stills.

"It's hard, isn't it?" he asks, his voice soft. "I know, my sister goes through it to." He smiles at him, a pitying smile that Sherlock wants to claw off. "But, you know, I could—I mean, if you wanted me to, I could help you through it. It'll feel better, I promise."

"Get your hands off me." His voice is cold, jagged, like a piece of ice.

Victor leans forward until his nose is in his hair, and he inhales. "When it happens again, you'll come to me anyway, begging for a knot. It happens, you don't have to feel—"

That's when Sherlock raises his elbow and slams it into his face. Victor's fingers fall from his wrist and instead he doubles over, clutching at his nose. Sherlock steps back, rubbing at his arm unconsciously, as if to rid himself of Victor's scent all over him, clinging to his skin like a disease.

"Sherlock, what—" he says, voice muffled against his hand. "I'm only—"

"Get out of my room," Sherlock orders him, his voice steady, looking down at him, wishing for all the world that he would just vanish and leave him alone.

"I—"

" _Out."_

Victor leaves, and Sherlock feels like he's lost something important, like he's saying goodbye to too many things at once.

* * *

Mycroft comes in a few minutes later. He doesn't knock, he never knocks, the world would end before Mycroft decided to knock.

He comes in to the sight of Sherlock throwing a half-empty mug of cold tea against the wall. The pale blue ceramic splinters, light brown liquid staining the cream of the wall.

"Sherlock," he says wearily. The tone of it grates Sherlock's nerves. He's not a wounded animal, not a child that needs to be coddled. He is a person.

"You're wrong," he says, and he's not sure who he's even speaking to anymore. His voice is shaking, he is shaking, tremors running through his body that threaten to overwhelm him. "Everything changes."


	2. autumnus

**Warnings for extremely dubious consent, and almost (but not quite) underage sex. Like don't even look for consent. You won't find it.**

 **Reviews are balm to my tortured writer's soul.**

 **I'm sorry for this chapter. See you all in in hell. *cheery wave***

* * *

 _ **The man on top of you is teaching you how to hate, sees you**_

 _ **As a piece of real estate**_

 _ **Just another fallow field lying underneath him**_

 _ **Like a sacrifice**_

 _ **He's turning your back into a table so he doesn't have to**_

 _ **Eat off the floor, so he can get comfortable,**_

 _ **Pushing against you until he fits, until he's made a place for himself inside you-**_

 _ **The clock ticks from five to six. Kissing degenerates into biting.**_

 _ **So you get another kidney punch, a little blood in your urine.**_

 _ **It isn't over yet. It's just begun.**_

 _ **-Richard Siken**_

* * *

School is a nightmare.

Sherlock has never pined so much for that mask of obscurity, the invisible wall that divided him from everyone else. It used to hurt, he remembers. An odd twinge in his chest from time to time when he realised that he was never going to be like the rest of them. But then it became a part of him, that loneliness, and Sherlock learnt to become numb to it.

Now he longs for it, more than ever. Because now he walks down the hallways and they all lift their gazes and they _know._ They know what he is, can smell it on him from miles away. They treat him differently now. Like he's someone who needs to be protected, someone who can't take care of himself. They keep _touching_ him all the time, running their hands over him like they are _entitled_ to his body.

He's forced to take that stupid, obligatory Omega Studies class, where he's forced to sit with the other omega students that the school has. They all look at him oddly, a mixture of pity and a dejected _welcome to the club._

He's taught that he should feel special, because statistics and percentages make him so.

Thirty five percent. Just a number, Sherlock tells himself.

He's important, a coveted member of society, his biology makes him valuable, like a diamond in dirt. Naturally one of the most important things he's taught is that in future, he will bear children, raise pups, keep the population growing.

"Is this supposed to make me feel better?" Sherlock asks one day. He's sitting in the farthest end of the classroom, in the corner, next to the window. He can't bear to sit next to the others, they smell too much like himself, it gets to you, after a while.

Ms. Pewett squints her eyes to look at him, fixing her glasses. She realises it's Sherlock and gives a great, big weary sigh as if he's the most difficult thing to happen to her today.

"Could you repeat yourself, Mr. Holmes?" she asks him, leaning against the desk in a resigned manner.

"I asked you, is that supposed to make me feel better? The fact that I'm _special_ and _important_?" He leans back on his heels, arms crossed over his chest, his hair flops into his eyes. The others look at him. The one who has a black dog clears her throat uncomfortably.

"It is every omega's duty—" Ms. Pewett begins her memorised speech but Sherlock scoffs.

"Oh _please_ ," he drawls. "This class is pathetic. You're pathetic. We all are. I'm not special, or important. I'm a fucking piece of meat, a machine that's supposed to churn out a child as soon as I reach sexual maturity."

"Mr. Holmes—" Ms Pewett starts in an alarmed tone, her eyes going wide. Sherlock must be breaking so many rules now, crossing so many boundaries. The knowledge of it sends a pleased shiver down his spine.

"You're only telling me what I already know. I should be thankful, I should be grateful," he laughs. Tony Brownstone two rows ahead of him smirks at his desk.

"I'm not," Sherlock says with finality. "And neither are you. Look at yourself. You go home early on Mondays and Thursdays, pick up your children from day care. One of them is a beta, _hmm,_ lucky girl, oh yes, of course she's a girl, I can smell her on you, and an alpha—yes? No? Don't lie, it's clear as a book. Your mate, she's one of those liberal alphas, she tells you she'll do her share of the housework. That's a lie, and you know it. You do the shopping every morning, I see it when you park your car. You work extra on every other day of the week because you're telling yourself you're contributing to your family, your mate lets you work and you're taking advantage of that, good for you, but you don't _need_ to, not really, she works enough for the both of you, look at the clothes you're wearing. You studied hard enough to be a doctor, you might have specialised in omega care, but that's alright—you teach biology to the sixth years, of course you did—but in the end, it didn't get you anywhere, did it, look at you now." Sherlock's chair comes back to the ground with a hard _plonk._ He takes a deep breath. The class is still.

"Get out of my class," Pewett says, her voice quiet, the edges of it lined with steel and something unsteady. Her hand is cupped over the edge of the desk, hard. Sherlock can see the blood rush from her flesh, leaving it pale.

"Glad to, it's not like I'm learning anything new," Sherlock replies, standing up and slinging his bag over his shoulder. The chair scrapes against the floor when he brushes past it. He feels the weight of everyone's gaze as he sweeps out the room.

He keeps walking down the corridor, barely aware of where he's going. Someone calls him, he doesn't care, he just walks, until he's outside in the grounds. He drops his bag to the ground, it makes a dull sound when it hits the grass. He leans his back against a tree and tilts his head upwards, inhaling the scent of autumn.

It is just as difficult to breathe.

He slides against the bark until he's sitting, brings his knees up to his chest. The wood scrapes his back, it's slightly uncomfortable, and he feels cold. His jumper is tied around his waist but Sherlock ignores it, instead he leans his forehead against his knees and tries to breathe. He wants to vanish, wants the ground to open up and swallow him whole, leaving no evidence of his existence.

He can hear the sound of leaves crunching underfoot, someone is approaching. He lifts his head and sniffs the air; alpha, obviously. His fingers claw into the fabric of his trousers and his body tenses, preparing to fight. It's not the usual reaction of an omega to an alpha, he supposes. But this time Sherlock wants to be anything but usual.

"Holmes?" a male voice calls. Sherlock screws his eyes shut and exhales. Imbecile, he thinks. If he really wants to find me he might as well use his nose instead of lumbering around like an idiot.

"Oh, there you are," something that smells annoyingly like chocolate wafts up his nostrils. Sherlock doesn't look up, choosing to stare at the tree in front of him, noting the swirls and patterns in the bark, the odd shape of the leaves.

"You shouldn't be here alone," he continues, as if he honestly thinks Sherlock is listening. "It's cold, Fitzpatrick told me to get you back inside."

Sherlock immediately turns to him, lifting his head up so he can look into his eyes. He's on the ground, and Benjamin Turner is looking down at him. The tradition of it sends a prickly shade of shame down his spine, but Sherlock doesn't need to be on his feet to intimidate him. "Fitzpatrick said no such thing to you," he spits, levelling him with a cool glare. Benjamin looks back, his lips slightly parted, one eyebrow raised in response to Sherlock's acidic reply.

"I—"

"Do you think I don't know it's cold?" Sherlock stands up then, he's just as tall as Benjamin, maybe taller. "Are you labouring under the impression that I am an idiot, Turner? Because that insult would apply to you." Benjamin's fingers curl up at his sides, and his eyes narrow, even as a flush creeps up his cheeks.

"You can't talk to me like that, you fr—"

Before he can finish his sentence, Sherlock has his fingers curled at the front of his shirt and he slams him against the tree. His lips pull back from his teeth in a snarl, even as every instinct in his body tells him to _let go, stop, stop wrong wrong wrong._ "Don't," he spits, and his fingers twist in the cotton. Turner stares at him, his eyes wide, his mouth agape. His hands are spread against the bark, his legs apart.

"I'm only trying to help," he tells him, his voice soft and placating, as if he's speaking to a child. His hands reach out to touch him, as if he is somehow entitled to, and Sherlock recoils, letting him go in disgust.

Turner looks down at his shirt where the cotton is wrinkled and where his legs are still spread against the tree. Sherlock's gaze falls to the same spot and he notes a faint bulge in his trousers. He feels sick, bile rising in his throat. Turner looks up at him to meet his eyes and his lips pull up in a crooked smile. "Wanna help me out?" he asks.

Sherlock's fist slams into his face.

He feels an odd sense of déjà vu, watching Turner double over and moan and clutch his nose. He spits something at him, along the lines of _freak_ or _slut_ or _whore,_ uncreative and unimaginative.

"I'm not your property," Sherlock tells him, as if he stating a fact. "Now go. You'll be late for class. And by the way? The ginger beta who you're attempting to get a leg over? She detests you. It's probably because of your morphine addiction. Or the erectile dysfunction. You ought to get that seen to. "

He looks up at him, wiping away the thin tendril of blood running down his nose. Sherlock feels a sense of triumph, looking at the crimson. _I did that,_ he thinks. And at the same moment a faint tremor runs through him as if what he's done is twisted and wrong.

"I'm well enough to shove a knot in you and get you to shut up," Turner spits, "Maybe I will. You will. You'll take it, when I give it to you." He smirks at him again, and Sherlock controls the urge to punch him again. His hand hurts.

After he's gone, Sherlock falls to his knees, rubbing his fingers over his bruised knuckles. He picks up the brittle leaves that are strewn over the grass, crushes them in his fist and watches the wind pick up the brown and red and yellow pieces, scattering them until they're lost once more.

* * *

He meets Victor again.

It's been a month since he last spoke to him, a month since everything changed. Sometimes he sees Victor on the street, waiting at the bus stop. Whenever he does, he turns around and walks in the other direction, afraid of what he'll see when he looks into Victor's eyes.

He reminds himself over and over again that it wasn't his fault, it won't ever be. But sometimes he can't stop his fingers from trembling, can't stop the flush creeping over his neck, the memory replaying itself in his mind like a broken tape recorder. Mycroft never explicitly forbade him to meet Victor again, he knows that Sherlock will do whatever he wants to do anyway. But he disapproves of it. Mother doesn't say anything, and father wasn't told about it.

He's thinking about him, that day, when he's curled up in bed in one of those rare bouts of lethargy. He's not due for another month, at least, so he knows it's not the result of upcoming oestrus. Sunlight filters through the window, rain washed and bright. _Advanced Forensic Science_ lies open next to him, the pages fluttering a bit in the breeze. Sherlock wonders if this is what loneliness feels like.

He can smell him, when he comes. The familiar scent in the air, cherries and wood. It used be an oddly comforting smell, something he associated with acceptance and safety. Victor wasn't his friend, because he doesn't have friends, but he was _something_ , at least. Now he feels uncertainty and confusion and the faint metallic tinge of fear. Victor knocks on his door and Sherlock tells him it's open, and he comes in.

Sherlock doesn't look at him, although he wants to.

"Hi," Victor says, his voice cautious and soft. Sherlock sighs, getting up, his dressing gown slipping off his shoulder in the process. He combs his fingers through his hair, blinks at Victor. He's leaning against the closed door, his mouth turned up in a reproachful smile.

"Yes." That's all Sherlock says. It could mean anything.

"I-uh—how are you?" Victor walks forward and sits down on the edge of the bed, Sherlock's socked feet brush his thigh.

"Fine."

"How's school?" Victor asks. His gaze flicks down to Sherlock's mouth, but it's all very quick. If Sherlock wasn't Sherlock he might not have even noticed.

His chest still feels oddly tight.

Sherlock doesn't say he hates it more than ever, that when he gets top marks in assignments there's surprise where there wasn't any before. He doesn't say that people notice him too much now, for all the wrong reasons. He doesn't say that sometimes he wishes he could disappear.

"The usual."

"That's good," Victor says. Sherlock rolls his eyes and gets off the bed, the dressing gown slides down the length of his body from where it was bunched up under him. He stands at the desk, rearranging the microscope slides. He feels Victor's gaze on him seven inches away.

"Uh, listen," he clears his throat uncomfortably. Sherlock is looking intently at the polished wood, but he can hear the groan of the bedsprings as Victor gets up and stands next to him instead. "I came to return something to you, it's been at my place for ages."

Sherlock turns to him, then, raising an eyebrow in question. Victor studies him for a second, a flash of uncertainty across his face. He digs in the pocket of his jeans and takes out a CD. It's in a simple plastic case, _Sherlock_ written across it in permanent marker.

"You left it there, last time, um," Victor fidgets. Sherlock looks at him, unimpressed, but takes the CD from him. His fingers brush against Victor's.

"I get it. Thank you," he replies stiffly, sliding the CD into the pocket of his dressing gown. He purses his lips and looks expectantly at Victor.

"Anything else?" he asks.

"Uh—no, not really. I just." He runs a hand through his hair, a nervous gesture that Sherlock recognizes.

Sherlock cocks a hip against the desk and stares intently at him. "Yes?"

"You know I'm sorry, right?" he says, putting his palm on the desk so his fingers almost touch Sherlock's hand. "About what I said, last time."

Sherlock is aware of how close his skin is. "You don't need to," he says coldly. "My mother made that perfectly clear."

Victor licks his lips. "Yeah, but still. I shouldn't have—said what I did. I'm sorry."

"Okay."

"Sherlock, I—I mean it. You know I like you, right?" Suddenly Victor is a bit too close. Sherlock can smell too much of him, the cherry scent of him, sweet and tart.

"What?" he asks, genuinely confused. He feels sweat trickle down his neck.

"You. I like you. You're...different. Good." Victor's eyes travel down to his throat and swiftly back up, resting for a moment on his mouth before he meets his gaze again. Sherlock feels hot and a little bit trapped, even though Victor isn't restricting his movement in any way.

"I...okay?" Sherlock's voice wavers, and he's not quite sure why. _I like you,_ the words ring in his ear. No one has said that to him before, and Victor has never...never given any implication that he thought of Sherlock in that way, he was older, wasn't he? Victor was older, and except for that day...he had never. Sherlock tries to deduce something about this conversation. Is this a joke? It must be a joke.

"Hey," Victor says, and he cups his hand behind his nape. Sherlock swallows, his eyes locked on that little scar at the corner of Victor's mouth. It's pale and faded, and disappears when Victor smirks. "You're thinking too much."

Sherlock frowns at him. Why is that a bad thing?

But then Victor has his lips pressed against his own, and Sherlock stops thinking for a second.

 _Oh._

His mind feels pleasantly empty. He was right, though, Victor's lips are as soft as he thought they would be. Should he push him off? Say something? Part his lips and let Victor slide his tongue into his willing mouth?

His hand grips the desk harder, and he feels Victor cradle the back of his head, one hand pressed against his hip at where the hem of his t shirt meets the waistband of his pyjamas. He twists them around until he has him crowded against the desk, the rim digging into the small of his back. Sherlock doesn't know what to do with his hands so he just keeps them clutching at the desk.

"Open your mouth," Victor whispers against his lips, so Sherlock does, and the warm, wet slickness of Victor's tongue slides inside and Sherlock tastes something heady and intoxicating. He doesn't kiss back, he doesn't know how, Sherlock has never been kissed before; he tries to concentrate on keeping himself standing upright so he can properly feel the press of Victor teeth against his bottom lip. Victor gives a soft growl of approval and curls his hands into his hair, tugging at it so Sherlock tilts his face upwards, giving Victor better access to his mouth. Sherlock's eyes are closed and he can smell Victor's arousal mingling with his own, can feel the wetness between his legs. Victor presses him harder against the desk, his hand at the small of his back, lying a little too low on his waist. He slots a leg between Sherlock's and grinds, slightly, and Sherlock feels his hips roll of their own accord, a choked gasp making its way out of his mouth.

As far as first kisses go, Sherlock is just aware that it is _too much_.

Victor pulls away, and Sherlock calculates that he has been kissed for approximately forty nine seconds. He feels Victor nuzzle at his throat, inhale his scent, his erection nudging between Sherlock's legs. His ears are buzzing and his nape is damp, as are his pyjamas. What is one supposed to do in these situations? Sherlock isn't sure. He loosens his grip on the desk and the blood flows back.

"You smell amazing," Victor murmurs, pressing his lips against his pulse. "Was that good? Did you like it?" His knee brushes his crotch and Sherlock bites his lip to prevent the moan, unable to stop the pleasure curling tightly in his belly. "You did, you're wet," Victor observes, and raises his head, smirking at Sherlock.

Sherlock raises his hands shakily and presses them to Victor's chest, pushing him away. He feels his cheeks flush in embarrassment, and he looks away, down at his feet, ignoring the wet spot on his pyjamas, trying to find equilibrium again. His legs feel weak, his head oddly light. He can't even blame it on the unavoidable biology of his body, not this time, this time it's a lapse on his own part.

Damn it, he wants Victor to kiss him again. Sherlock doesn't like wanting. It makes him too human.

He's still close, the push doing close to nothing. His hands fall away from his hips and he slides them into his pockets instead. "Hey, it's alright, you—"

"This doesn't change anything," Sherlock says, looking at him.

Victor raises an eyebrow. "Sure," he says. "Whatever. But, you know. I like you."

"Okay," Sherlock responds, and then turns away from him, choosing to look outside the window instead of Victor's flushed face and untidy hair. The sunlight blinds him slightly.

He feels Victor lean forward behind him and brush his hair away from his nape, pressing a kiss against the skin before he hears the door shut as he leaves.

Sherlock raises shaking fingers to his mouth and touches the still-sensitive skin. He thinks of hand holding, of fluffy clouds and dark storms that destroy everything in their path.

He can smell Victor on himself, and he hates it.

* * *

He meets him again, and again, and again, and Victor snogs him at every chance he gets—or wraps a hand around his cock and makes him come, shivering and gasping while he whispers filthy things in their ears. His family visists Victor's parents for dinners and Victor drags him into his room and Sherlock opens his lips around Victor's cock and lets him fuck his mouth. " _No one knows you're here,"_ Victor says, " _No one knows you're in my room, on your knees with my cock down in your pretty little mouth, and oh—fuck yeah, like that—don't know what a good little—_ fuck— _cock sucker you are—"_ Sherlock pretends it arouses him and pushes his hand into his pants to get himself off. It gags him and chokes him but he does it, because afterwards Victor will kiss him and tell him how good that was, and just for a few minutes Sherlock won't feel completely alone.

His door is closed, and Chopin is playing from inside. Sherlock closes his eyes for a second and listens. It calms him. Makes him feel sad, and that makes no sense, so he ignores it. He raises a fist to knock on the door, but Victor opens it before he can, leaning against the rim of the door and smiling at him lazily. "You came."

"I—" Sherlock licks his lips. "Yes, I suppose."

"Mmm, thought you would," Victor says, and pulls him inside, locking the door behind him. The music swells. Piano concerto no.2 in F minor.

His room is still the same. Sherlock hasn't been here since his sixteenth birthday last month. The posters on the wall, the desk strewn with his i-Pod headphones and open notebooks. The wardrobe, he knows, must be empty, the bed is stripped.

"When are you leaving?" he asks. He is aware of Victor standing behind him, a bit too close to comfort, and yet the proximity is...nice. It's confusing. It's always confusing when it comes to Victor. Longing/reluctance/annoyance/longing longing longing

"In an hour," Victor answers, and he leans forward, nose in his hair, inhaling deeply. Sherlock stills, his jaw tightening, an odd swooping sensation in his gut.

"I'm going to miss you," Victor says, his hand sliding down Sherlock's side, his palm warm over the thin t-shirt. Perhaps not the smartest thing to wear in autumn, Sherlock thinks. He shivers. But whether from cold or reluctant arousal, he doesn't know.

"I—" _I'll miss you too?_ That seems like the sort of thing that one is expected to say in these situations, but would it be truthful? He'd be rather relieved, he decides, yes, perhaps he'll miss him, in a way, he'll miss the easy slip-and-glide of their relationship before biology wrenched it from him. This, though, whatever this is, he doesn't know what to feel about it.

"You're freezing," Victor muses, his fingers grazing the cold skin under his t-shirt. His fingers are warm. Sherlock shivers again. "Should have wrapped yourself up, hmm, wouldn't want you to get sick."

"Common cold, acute viral rhinipharyngites. Caused by coronavirus or rhinivirus," Sherlock babbles.

Victor hums. "Very good," he says, his tone amused. Then he places a hand a bit more forcefully on his hip and turns him around. Sherlock swallows in surprise. Victor is in front of him now, looking down at him only slightly (because now it's only an inch of a difference. Just an inch) the familiar smirk on his lips. Sherlock feels his crotch tighten uncomfortably under the onslaught of Victor's aroused gaze, just as Victor raises a hand and brushes his thumb across Sherlock's bottom lip. It's an intimate gesture, one that sends a shiver of arousal down his spine, inciting a sudden desire to get down on all fours for Victor, present himself like a piece of meat. He pushes the feeling down, and Victor cups his chin and kisses him.

Sherlock lets out a soft moan at the press of his lips, which Victor takes as encouragement and slips his tongue inside, running his palms down Sherlock's sides to wrap around his waist. Sherlock's hands are cramped against his chest, and he opens his mouth wider, lets Victor taste him and slide a hand down to his arse to squeeze. He chokes back a gasp and Victor presses himself harder against him, erection digging into Sherlock's stomach.

"Vic, I don't think—" he murmers, but Victor just tangles his fingers into his hair and tugs his head backwards, biting down softly on his lip. " _Ah,_ fuck," Sherlock whimpers, and Victor starts pushing them back, until he's pressed up against his desk.

Victor pulls harder at his hair, tugging his head back so he can get to his neck, sucking and biting at the taunt skin. It stings a bit, but Sherlock can't help but gasp and arch up to his touch, spreading his legs wider and letting victor stand between his thighs and rhythmically rut against his growing erection. He groans softly, Victor pushing his shirt up so he can run his hands down the fevered skin, pinching his nipples while he humps his thigh, Sherlock squirming underneath him, barely able to hold back his moans. It arouses him, if the wetness in the seat of his jeans is anything to go by, and it's nice, maybe not the kissing itself, but being wanted like this by someone, wanted enough for him to slip his hands under your shirt and touch you like _this._

He hooks both arms underneath his arse and pulls him up, seating him on the desk like a child, moving in between spread legs and placing his warm, wet mouth underneath his ear. Sherlock is panting, knuckles white from gripping the desk, wanting to touch Victor, to curl his fingers in his hair but Victor will scoff at the gesture, so he just spreads his legs a bit more and lets Victor roll his hips against him, while he throws his head back and keens, pretty sure he's going to come just from Victor rubbing his cock against him. Victor lifts his shirt off and throws it on the floor.

"Never been fucked before, have you?" Victor whispers into his ear, fingers moving to the fly of his jeans to pull it down. Sherlock feels panic/curiosity/no no/yes yes _yes_ and bites his lip, shaking his head at Victor because he's too afraid of what his voice will sound like if he speaks.

Victor groans in response, his breath hot and humid against his neck, pulling his jeans down and off his ankles. Sherlock's erection tents against his boxers obscenely and Victor palms it, making his hips jerk off the bed, a whimpery gasp wrenched from his lips. "I'm going to fuck you," Victor announces, moving back so Sherlock can look into his eyes, pupils wide and cheeks flushed with arousal, tanned hands still moving lazily down Sherlock's prick, "You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Sherlock's eyes flutter and his hips rock against Victor's fist.

 _I don't know,_ he wants to say. _Could you kiss me first?_

"Please," he says instead, and Victor's lips pull up in a crooked smile, and Sherlock's boxers are pulled off of him before he can change his mind, and Victor's heated gaze is running over his naked body like something that's about to be devoured and Sherlock doesn't know if feeling like a trapped bird is conductive to this kind of thing.

 _I want it. I do,_ he thinks. _Or at least my body does._ It should be enough. There's slick running down his thighs and his skin feels fevered and his heart rate is high, certainly these are all signs that his body is telling him, _Let's let Victor Trevor ruin us,_ and Sherlock wants to be wanted and this is all he'll ever have of that, so he allows Victor to pull him down from the desk, turn him around and press him against it instead, knocking his legs apart with his knee and holding his head on the surface of the table, keeping him in place.

Sherlock can't move, Victor's body is pressed against him, fingers tangled in his hair, wood pressing hard against his cheek, Victor's hand moving down to his arse to give it a squeeze. He writhes underneath him and Victor says, "Don't move," so he tries to, he does, but he feels uncomfortable and hot and like a butterfly pinned against a display case for everyone to examine and this doesn't feel right even though it should.

"God, I've wanted you like this since forever," Victor breathes; Sherlock can hear the rasp of his zipper and then the heavy, demanding weight of Victor's cock against his arse, and he doesn't know what to do, or how to do it, whether laying there and waiting to be fucked is such a good idea after all, especially when Victor is using nothing more than his own slick to open him up.

Sherlock gasps, the sensation of Victor's fingers inside him not so pleasant after all, mainly because he's not in heat and they should use lube, and because Victor is moving too fast and he's not giving him time to adjust, Sherlock hasn't had sex before and he knows the mechanics of it, but this is new and unfamiliar and if only Victor would _slow down a bit_ Sherlock would try to be good for him, because he doesn't want to end up being another cross-out on Victor's list of conquests. He wants to be special, he wants to be remembered, he wants to be more than a moaning, keening omega under the heavy press of Victor's body.

Or maybe that's just the hormones talking.

"Look at you, all spread out for me like a good little whore," Victor bends down to whisper in his ear, lips pressing against his neck, fingers moving relentlessly in and out. Sherlock's knees buckle and his lips are chapped and rough from the unforgiving edge of his teeth. "God, I've wanted to fuck you for ages," he says, "You'd come here all neat and pretty, good little schoolboy and I wanted to fucking _ruin you,_ you know? And that day—god that day—you were on your hands and knees and you have no idea what I wanted to do to you—and you would have taken it, begged me for it— _fuck,_ Sherlock, look at you," and then his fingers are finally gone, and Sherlock tries to move, but then Victor's hands are on his wrists, pinning him down like a prisoner, his cock teasingly brushing his entrance before plunging right in.

Sherlock almost screams, it's too _tight_ and it _hurts_ and his cock is lying hard against his belly which means he's aroused but this is all so _uncomfortable_ and Victor groans from above him, his hips going _roll, snap, roll snap,_ a rhythm that's fast and rough and sex is supposed to be good and pleasurable but this is neither.

Sherlock whines, fingers wriggling in Victor's grasp, and Victor probably takes it for arousal, because he moves quicker, saying, "You like that, yeah? You like this? Fuck. _Fuck,_ Sherlock, you're so tight, fuck you feel so good, yeah, _yeah,_ " and Sherlock is bent over the desk with his hands clamped above him, legs shaking from the force of Victor's thrusts, slick gushing between his legs and his cock throbbing; there are tears in his eyes and it's funny how the slow trickle of salt water down his cheeks distracts him from Victor ploughing at him from behind; he wants to wipe it off but he obviously can't move until Victor is done with him so he tries to enjoy it but it's a little difficult.

"Shhh, don't want Mother to hear us, now, do we?" Victor growls behind him, and Sherlock bites his lips but it's hard to keep quiet.

After a minute or so, Sherlock can just about tolerate it and he doesn't feel like moving anymore, instead he pushes his arse against Victor's cock and moans, rubbing his own prick against the desk. He'd like it if Victor let go of his wrists so he could get himself off, but Victor sounds too far gone to even care, he's grunting and groaning behind him, stretched over Sherlock and biting down on his shoulder like an animal. He'll be marked by tomorrow, he thinks, bruised with bites like he has a possessive alpha boyfriend. He'll be _stinking_ with Victor's pheromones, scented like a mate and he wants to gag at the idea.

Instead he screws his eyes shut and lets Victor fucks him.

Afterwards, Victor pulls away and he winces, because it hurts, but he hopes he didn't see that. The sudden absence of contact makes him unsteady, and he has to wait for a few seconds before the faint trembling of his body subsides. He can hear Victor behind him doing up his jeans, the rasp of his zipper against metal. Sherlock's own fingers are shaking, and he can't fathom _why,_ because he's not scared, why should he be scared? It makes no sense for his body to be acting this way.

He pulls his pants and his jeans up, even though they are sticky and cold, but he doesn't have anything else to wear. He stares insistently at the poster on the wall as he buttons himself up, not looking behind him, fingers still shaking. He pulls his t-shirt on, at least it's dry. His cock still strains uncomfortably against his jeans, Victor hadn't really fucked him long enough for _both_ of them to come, but Sherlock supposes it doesn't really matter. He wills the erection to go away, thinking of the rat he's dissecting in his room. Behind him the bed springs groan as Victor sits on the bed. The _bed._ Why couldn't they shag on the bed? It would have been more comfortable that way. Sherlock's cheek still hurts. He turns around, fingers still brushing the spot, and Victor is sprawled on the bed, legs apart, smiling at him lazily.

"Was that...enough." Sherlock clears his throat, and asks him again, "Was that good enough?"

Victor frowns at him for a second. "What?" Sherlock ignores the sinking feeling in his stomach and asks him again.

"I—" he doesn't really care anymore. He feels filthy and his arse hurts and his wrists hurt and he doesn't care that Victor will probably forget about this by the time he's in Oxford.

"Oh. _That,_ " Victor laughs. "Yeah. Definitely. You should look at yourself right now, pretty little omega roughed up after a good fucking," he smiles crookedly like he's made the funniest joke possible but all Sherlock wants to do is dig his fingers into his shirt and shake him and ask him why he had to ruin everything. "Well. I ought to get on then." He checks his watch. Sherlock is still looking at the bed, wondering if it would have been nicer there, on his back, wrapping his legs around Victor as they rocked against each other. Maybe Victor could have whispered something nice in his ear. Maybe he could have wrapped his arms around neck. Maybe Victor wouldn't hurt him so much like that.

Victor follows the line of his gaze. "Oh," he says. "Well, we couldn't have gotten the mattress dirty."

Of course. Stained mattress. Evidence of their coupling plain for everyone to see. Does Victor not want anyone to know about it? Probably. But they'll smell it on _him._ It's written clearly across his rumpled and damp clothing. Victor looks oddly unruffled.

Something cracks inside Sherlock. He can feel it like a fissure, fault lines erupting on every inch of skin, the tight membrane of his skin breaking apart. Suddenly he can't breathe.

"I—" he swallows. "I should go. I—have a safe trip." God, he sounds like a child. He's not a child.

He runs out of the room.

Down the stairs, trying to get out of the house as quickly as possible. His cheeks are burning. His clothes are sticky. He smells like cherries, it's _awful._


	3. Rubatosis

I promise this is the last John-less chapter your will have to bear. Happy (well, sort of) times are on their way!

Comments are welcomed, well fed and taken care of. Feel free to leave them here! :)

* * *

 _You love the city, when you love each other._

 _And when you wake up in a city that you don't recognize,_

 _and the traffic lights blink angry,_

 _it is not because the city has grown cold._

 _It is not because your hands no longer fit in his._

 _It is because it is someone else's turn to lean_

 _out her window into the cold cold morning and say,_

 _Baby, look at all those traffic lights, blinking their way into dawn._

 _\- Sarah Kay, For Fanny_

"Suppressants," Sherlock snaps at him as soon as he is inside. The door slams shut loudly behind him. Mycroft is seated at his desk, signing increasingly dull government documents and doesn't give the slightest indication of having noticed him.

"Are illegal," he responds after a few seconds, and then looks up, placing his chin on interlaced fingers. His nostrils flare slightly at his scent, but he doesn't do anything else. Unlike Natalia Palmer. The memory makes him feel vaguely ill.

Sherlock crosses his arms. "Not all of them."

"You can't take suppressants until you reach sexual maturity," Mycroft picks up his pen again and continues to sign. He sounds like every bloody orange coloured pamphlet on omega sexual health and Sherlock has a strong urge to wrench the expensive fountain pen from his grasp and stab him with it. Repeatedly. "I take it you had an interesting day at school. You might as well have restrained yourself. Graduation is in what, a week?"

Sherlock scowls, stalking forward and tumbling into the chair opposite Mycroft's desk. He can smell Mycroft better like this, and he inhales deeply, involuntarily. He feels too warm. When he brings his fingers to his neck to undo the top two buttons of his shirt his skin is feverish.

"I—" he stops. Loses track of his sentence. Mycroft looks up, then, grey eyes sharp with concern.

"I don't care," Sherlock spits out, although that hadn't been what he originally planned to say. "She's hateful and I gave her what she deserved. And don't change the subject. I need suppressants, and don't pretend you can't procure them for me. I'm sick of this."

"Sherlock," Mycroft says wearily, and Sherlock detests that tone. He wants to strangle that tone and stab it with Mycroft's fountain pen. "Going through your heats naturally is healthy. Suppressants are not. They have side effects. Infertility. Weight loss. Nausea. And they're terribly expensive." He taps the pen against the desk, and the sound grates unpleasantly against his ears.

"Don't pretend, Mycroft, it doesn't suit you," Sherlock hisses. "And I don't care if they make me bloody infertile. Do you think I give a fuck about whether I'll be able to pop out a few pups in a couple of years? Or perhaps you and father care? Because how on earth will I land an Alpha when I can't even get pregnant—"

"For God's sake," Mycroft finally snaps, putting his pen down and glaring at Sherlock. "It's for your own good. Wait a few years, you can get a limited amount of them regularly, and you'd only have to go into a heat once a year or so. Taking them while you're still young, it's not—"

"Fine," Sherlock says brusquely. "I can get them illegally. You know I can. And illegal suppressants will do far worse things to my body, as you know."

Mycroft looks furious. Sherlock enjoys it immensely. The government documents lay forgotten as he raises a hand to run it through his hair. "And how are you going to pay for them?"

"I have a trust fund."

"To which I can cut off your access very easily."

"I'm sure I can use my natural charms to my advantage," Sherlock allows himself a crooked smile.

Mycroft's lip curls in disgust. "Sherlock, you cannot—"

"Well," he replies brightly, getting up. "This conversation has been delightful. Do come visit, Mycroft. You know how mummy misses you." His exit is dramatic, which is good, but he could have argued for longer, if only Mycroft hadn't been smelling increasingly...pleasant. Sherlock's fever is beginning to spike and there is a dull ache in his belly. If Mycroft won't be able to supply him with suppressants, he'll have to find another way to procure them. A distasteful prospect, definitely. But he won't be able to nick cash from Mycroft, and breaking into the trust fund, or his father's bank account, for that matter, wouldn't be possible without Mycroft finding out.

Benjamin Turner, as it turns out, has access to a variety of illegal substances. Sherlock knows this without asking anyone, naturally.

He doesn't know how to confront him. How to ask. The dull pain in his belly has spread to his thighs and his groin and now his head hurts as well. Outside it is freezing but Sherlock can't bring himself to wear his jumper. Most omegas would take the few days of pre-heat off, but Sherlock refuses to. He doesn't need to coddle himself, not when everyone else takes care of that so admirably.

He watches them playing rugby for a while, Benjamin Turner and his friends. He leans against a tree and breathes in cool air and tries to recite the entire periodic table under his breath, to distract himself from his unusually fast heart rate and the tingling feeling in his crotch. When they're done, they stumble into the showers, laughing at lewd jokes and punching each other. Sherlock waits outside the locker room for a few seconds, reminding himself that the mingled scent of sweat and mud and grass and alpha/alpha/alpha _isn't_ good, isn't supposed to make him feel anything other than mild disgust. Perhaps it isn't such a good idea to walk right into a roomful of testosterone-filled alphas just off the high of a rugby game, right on the verge of his heat. But Sherlock's head hurts and his limbs are weak and if only he could get a few suppressants, and Benjamin Turner will be able to provide him with some, and what does anything else matter?

So he takes a deep breath and walks in, and the smell grows stronger, as if it has suddenly been amplified by a thousand times, filling his nose and sending messages to his lizard brain that every person in this room is a potential mate. As soon as he is inside, all of them look up and their gaze zeroes in on him, and it's not supposed to feel good. But it does, and Sherlock can't help it.

"Why, hello there," Patrick Rowland says immediately. He wiggles his eyebrows at Sherlock. The rest of them laugh loudly. "Can we help you?"

"I need Turner," Sherlock spits. He raises a hand to push his hair back. His fingers come away damp.

"Need?" Rowland repeats suggestively, and someone gives a lewd wolf whistle. Sherlock's fists curl at his side and he says again, "Someone fetch him for me, please."

"Alright, then, Holmes," one of them answers, turning around. Beta. "Oi, Turner! Sherlock Holmes _needs_ you, apparently—wonder what he needs you for, eh?" He winks at Sherlock as he says so, and Sherlock feels his stomach roll. Someone wraps an arm around his waist, palm burning against his hip.

"I could give you what you need," he mocks into his ear, and Sherlock can feel him; shirtless, next to him, in nothing but a towel, sweaty and smelling of—fuck, what is that? Rum, he sells like rum—and why in God's name does that not seem like a ridiculous notion, because it is, Sherlock wouldn't touch this cretin with a six-feet pole. He elbows him away. "Fuck off," he snarls.

"Ooooh," Mark whistles from behind him. "Better not touch him, then, mate, he obviously wants Turner _only_..."

This was a stupid idea, Sherlock thinks, fucking stupid, he's an idiot—what on earth is he doing here? Walking into an alpha locker room, what did he expect? He'd be treated with politeness and respect instead of automatically being groped? What an ideal world that would be. He gives a frustrated, angry sigh, shoves Ian McKinnon away and starts to leave when he hears Turner's voice, "Holmes? What do you want?"

Sherlock stills, turns around. "You. Yes. I need a word with you."

More wolf whistles. Someone thumps Turner on the back. "Me?" he looks unconvinced. "Okay." He shrugs, and Sherlock gets out of that stifling locker room to the corridor outside, where it is cooler, without the thick scent of alpha pheromones in the air strangling his ability to think straight. Now it is only Turner, standing in front of him, hair wet from a shower and the collar of his shirt slightly damp. Sherlock chooses not to fixate on that.

Turner leans against the wall and raises an eyebrow at him. "Go on, then." His gaze drops to Sherlock's mouth and even further below, and his pupils dilate slightly. But he doesn't touch him. Maybe he's learnt his lesson. Maybe he knows Sherlock is capable of decapitating him in eighteen different ways at this particular moment.

"Somewhere people can't hear us," Sherlock finds himself saying, and Turner raises an eyebrow.

"You can't be serious," he laughs.

Sherlock rolls his eyes. "I am attempting to have a civil conversation with you, Turner, please don't turn everything into a proposition."

Turner smirks at him and then his fingers circle his wrist. Sherlock looks down at the calloused fingers around his wrist and his pulse jumps a bit, but he doesn't pull Sherlock closer, instead leading him further down the corridor and opening a door on the side.

"This classroom isn't used much. We won't be disturbed." He says this without a suggestive wink or a crude comment, but Sherlock notices the way his eyes grow dark and the subtle way he adjusts his trousers.

"Let's not pretend I won't break your arm if you try and touch me," Sherlock informs him, closing the door shut and turning around to face him. Turner's eyebrows are raised, but he nods like he finds Sherlock amusing and pulls out a chair to sit.

"So what do you need?" he asks conversationally. "Coke? I don't do meth, just to be upfront. But I can—"

"Suppressants," Sherlock says calmly.

Turner stops. "Oh." He says.

"Well?" Sherlock prompts.

"They won't be too hard to get. I know a bloke. But, uh, are you sure? I mean, they're not very—"

"Just tell me," Sherlock replies shortly.

"Can you pay for them?" he asks dubiously. He crosses and uncrosses his legs. The proximity to Sherlock is getting to him, then. "I know you're rich, but suppressants don't come cheap."

The back of Sherlock's head is throbbing. "I...I don't have money," he answers.

Turner stares at him. "You're fit and everything, Holmes, don't get me wrong, but I can't give them to you for free." He adjusts his trousers for the third time, choosing to stand up then.

Sherlock starts to panic. This is not going the way he had planned. Then again, what exactly had he planned ? He'd ask for suppressants and Turner would conjure them out of thin air? Give some to him and ask for nothing in return? He is standing far too close to Turner, he registers.

"There must be something," he says desperately. His voice takes on a strained edge.

Turner's eyes go impossibly dark. Sherlock regrets his words immediately.

"Yeah, I'm sure there's something," he replies, smiling crookedly at him. He steps closer. Chocolate. He smells like chocolate, and Sherlock involuntarily licks his lips. Ridiculous.

"No," Sherlock says it loud. Loud enough for it to be clear, precise, definite. No, I will not let you fuck me for suppressants. No, I mean it. I mean it, I mean it.

"I haven't made an offer yet," he says.

"You don't need to. I am not an idiot, unlike you. The answer is no." He steps away from him until his back against the door, but Turner steps closer, like one magnet to another, and suddenly Sherlock is aware that he is in front of him, trapping him effectively, and all Sherlock has to do is reach down and turn the door handle, get him off—

"Then why did you bring me here, to this empty classroom, _where no one can hear us_ ," he uses his fingers to air quote the words, "to ask me for drugs? Fucking tease."

Sherlock never planned this, he didn't, _he didn't._ He didn't think at all, really, and therein lies the problem, the entirety of his predicament. His body feels too hot for him to think, and his hand is too sluggish in moving towards the handle, because Turner grabs it quite easily and pins it above his head. Sherlock could knee him in the groin. Right now.

"Calm down, I'll get them for you. You just need to say the word," he says. His words are cloying and sweet, leaving his mouth in a rush of air that feels acidic against the damp skin of his neck. Sherlock bites his lip.

"I don't want them," Sherlock lies. He wants them desperately.

"Then what do you fucking _want_ , you bloody cock tease," Turner bites out, and then his mouth is on Sherlock's, parting his lips with his own and wielding his tongue like a weapon. Sherlock immediately uses his knee to knock him off and shoves him with his hands so he falls.

"Do you honestly only think with your _cock_ ," Sherlock spits at him, and wrenches the door open, leaving Turner on the ground moaning and clutching his groin.

He leans against the _wall_ outside, cradling his head. It hurts. He has graduation next week. Not that he cares. He doesn't. But mummy kept asking him the date and he kept snapping at her because _how many times am I to tell you, mother_ , but it meant that she wanted to come; that she would emerge from her eternal self-pitying long enough to.

Sherlock turns around and locks the door and walks down the corridor and hopes Turner is never able to open it, and he dies in that room, withered corpse all that remains of him.

* * *

The suppressants arrive in non-descript brown packaging the next day. With a note from Mycroft.

 _Don't be stupid. MH_

How typically Mycroft, Sherlock snorts, and rips the brown packing away to get to the bundle of blister packs tied together. He counts them all. 60 pills. They are enough to last him for a little more than a year. If he lets himself go into heat once, maybe, two years. Sherlock downs one with his tea at night just as prescribed and promptly spends the next six hours hunched over the toilet, feeling as if he is puking out his internal organs.

"You shouldn't do this to yourself," his mother says, standing at the door. "It's terrible for you, dear, you won't be able to find a—"

"Go away," Sherlock croaks, and retches once more.

But he smells like himself, and nobody paws him during graduation, and his body feels like his own again. He leaves school feeling almost happy, because he never has to see these people again, it's over, it's over.

* * *

London isn't boring.

London is loud and vibrant and cold and everything is in a constant state of flux. It seems like what the inside of his head would look like, and Sherlock wraps the musical absurdity and beauty of the city around himself like a thick, smoky blanket, and lets himself get lost in it.

It feels like home, and he thinks to himself, _I'm going to live here someday_. Maybe as soon as he starts university, this autumn. In the city you can't see the stars, which is a pity, because Sherlock likes them. He can't name them, doesn't really care about the details, but the poetry of it; yes, it is beautiful, isn't it?

Mycroft is content to know he's in London, and since he's probably being caught on surveillance by a camera nearby anyway, he won't be bothered yet. The cigarette smoke is stale in his mouth while he stands outside Victor's flat, and he thinks about desecrated churches, trees being split in two. London breathes around him like a slumbering dragon, and Sherlock wonders why, of all the places to be, he is here.

He really does have a knack for loving the things that will tear him apart, in the end.

He knows Victor is fucking some vapid, blond omega. He knows she comes over on the weekends and she's in the same year as she is, physics major, and she is beautiful and smart and all the things that he is not, most importantly, normal. Victor likes him because he is jagged and sharp and sometimes you just want someone _interesting_ to fuck, which Sherlock can understand, he really can, but he supposes that you can't fall in love with a maelstrom because it sucks you in and kills you. Fate always seems to have its way.

Sherlock feels sad, he feels the edges of it creeping into the hollow in his chest, threatening to make his heart ache. He doesn't want it, hates it, actually, and he never lets himself feel those things, but it's even more painful trying to choke them. He rings the bell.

Victor opens the door, and he looks much the same, only his chin is dark with stubble and his hair is slightly longer. His scent is different, though, he can smell the ripe, floral scent of the physics major on him, and it gives him a sharp twinge somewhere in the vicinity of his chest.

"Sherlock?" Victor looks confused before he breaks out in a grin. "Fuck, it's good to see you. Come in. What are you doing here?"

Sherlock doesn't say anything, just shakes the rain from his hair and steps into the warmer confines of Victor's flat. Vic closes the door behind him, and Sherlock looks around at the small room, messy and disoriented and covered in books everywhere.

"There are two more people living with you," Sherlock infers. "One of them is a theatre major, hmm, interesting, alpha. The other...physics? Ah, no, chemistry, along with you, those belong to the omega you're currently shagging. The theatre major plays tennis, the other one is a terrible guitar player, hmm...he doesn't—"

"Shh," Victor says behind him, hands resting on his hips and mouth against his ear. "Slow down for a bit, would you?"

Sherlock wants to tell him that he doesn't want to slow down, that the entire point of Victor was that he didn't mind when Sherlock didn't 'slow down'. He turns around and opens his mouth to tell him so, but Victor kisses him then, and he tastes like coffee and cigarette smoke; the familiarity of it makes everything inside of him _ache_ , and his thoughts on the matter vanish entirely. He is aware of his coat being slipped off his shoulders, the muted thump as the heavy wool falls on the wooden floor. Victor's warm fingers cup his chin and he angles his head so Victor can kiss him deeper. But he smells wrong, and Sherlock presses his palms against his chest and pushes him off.

"What was that for?" Victor asks, eyes narrowing.

"I didn't come here so you could fuck me," Sherlock answers, looking back at him unflinchingly.

"No?" Victor challenges, looking amused. "Funny."

Sherlock tries not to think about how that doesn't sound quite right. He sighs and sits down on the threadbare couch instead, picks up the half empty bottle of whiskey on the little coffee table and swigs. Victor laughs from the spot he hasn't moved from, and asks, "Do you want a glass?"

"Does it look like I want a glass," Sherlock asks him, and looks up at him, and quite deliberately, licks his upper lip, mopping up the linger taste of alcohol. Tattered converse are thumped down on the rough top of the table, as he stretches out his legs. A page of sheet music—piano, Victor used to play, still plays, maybe, he doesn't really care—flutters to the floor.

Victor sits down next to him, takes the bottle from his hand and puts it down on the table. "Why are you here, Sherlock," he asks. Sherlock stares at the faded bottoms of his pyjamas.

"Where are the rest of your flatmates?" he asks instead.

"Out, I suppose. I don't know," his fingers play on his thighs. Sherlock likes those fingers.

"You were with her," he mutters, staring at them. "Right before. At the pub down the street. Do you like her very much?"

"Yes, I do," Victor answers confidently, while he tangles fingers in Sherlock's hair to turn his head. "What is all this?"

"I—" Sherlock tries not to purr from the feel of Victor's hands. He remembers those fingers. How they feel on him. Inside him. Running down his skin. Victor touches her like that, he thinks, he's been doing it for almost a year, and he came by every vacation and still fucked Sherlock over his desk in his bedroom. Like clockwork. Like routine. "I don't know," he replies, surprisingly ineloquent, unsure of what to do with any part of his body. Victor seemed to like him in only one way, and it seems like even that is fading.

"You smell different," Victor says, pressing his mouth to side of Sherlock's neck. "Suppressants?" He inhales. "You used to smell better."

"And I couldn't make it to school without half the population of the town attempting to grope me," Sherlock rejoins, deadpan. "I found it immensely enjoyable."

"Smart arse," Victor breathes against his neck, and then in one fluid movement has him his back, on straddling his hips. "You're going to have a hard time at university if you keep opening this all the time," he brushes his fingers over Sherlock's lips. Sherlock ignores the comment and instead, in a stroke of genius opens his mouth and sucks Victor's fingers into them. Victor's eyes darken predictably and his mouth pulls up into a crooked smile.

"There, that," he groans. "That's what you should do with that pretty mouth of yours." He pushes them further into his mouth and Sherlock closes his eyes and swirls his tongue around them. Victor rolls his hips against him, making him gasp and buck his hips upward.

"Ah, that's it, feels good, doesn't it?" he leans down and kisses him. "Thought you didn't come here so I could fuck you,'" he mocks, dipping fingers into his waistband and pulling them down, jeans and pants together. Sherlock wants to correct him that no, he doesn't really want Victor to shag him here, he just wanted to see him, but he's afraid that that will not have a positive reaction and all he wants right now is for Victor to not leave. He'd let him fuck him a thousand times if that meant that Victor would just _stay_. "Almost eighteen and you still can't tell what you want," he says, wrapping a hand around his erection. Sherlock makes a strangled sort of noise, eyes going wide and teeth digging hard into his bottom lip as he tries to control the sounds he's making.

"Are you—are you going to fuck me, then?" he rasps, as Victor gives his cock a slow tug, using his other hand to unbutton his shirt.

"What's it look like I'm doing, genius," he responds, smirking, and brushes a thumb over a nipple. Sherlock's eyes roll back in his head and the familiar heat spirals down his body. Suppressants were originally wrecking havoc with his libido, he felt no arousal at all for the first few weeks but now it seems that Victor is working around that particular problem, if his pulsing prick is anything to go by.

"Ah, ah, fuck," he groans, and Victor leans down the side of the couch to rummage somewhere on the floor, fishing out a bottle of lube.

"You fucked her here," he observes. "On this couch, using that—"

"Mmm hmm," Victor responds, grabbing his hip and attempting to turn him over.

"What if someone were to come in, what if—"

"Then you better shut up and flip over, hmm?" he replies, fingers digging a bit more persistently into his flesh.

"And now you're fucking me," Sherlock can't help the hysterical bubble of laughter that's building in his throat, threatening to escape his mouth. "On this very couch, you should have used the bed, Vic, should have taken her on the bed, or fucked me on the floor, which is filthy by the way, but since when have you cared—"

"Shut up," Victor answers, and grabs him by the hipbones and forces him on his front. Sherlock is caught between the same hysterical laughter and arousal and bitter tears are pricking at the corner of his eyes—what? Where did they come from? Something is confusing about all of this, there is something odd in Victor's touches tonight, they have always been rough, but never quite bordering on violent—odd, but Sherlock doesn't move, because Victor won't want him if he can't fuck him, and Sherlock will be alone. The thought of being alone is enough to terrify him, send him into a panic. He bites his lips and his fingers dig into the arm of the sofa, before he suddenly screams as Victor's palms surround his hips and he pushes right in.

"Fuck," Sherlock hisses through the sudden onslaught of pain. Victor's hands hurt on his backside, he hasn't even prepared him, god it _hurts._

"That's it, _fuck_ , yeah," Victor groans behind him, thrusts erratic and rough and Sherlock is gasping and writhing underneath him in a few seconds, uncomfortable and itching to get out. Sex is horrible, he decides, what has he been thinking all this time? It used to be mildly pleasant, but this, fuck, this is threatening to cut off his oxygen and send him straight into an anxiety attack.

"Victor," he manages to choke out, as he fucks him, quick and shallow, but painful all the same. "Vic, please, I—" he can't quite get the sentence out, because it dissolves into a whimper instead. Victor grabs him by the hair and wrenches his head back, holding him almost upright and thrusts in at a different angle, and it feels—fuck, that would be his prostate—but it hurts, it hurts, and Sherlock doesn't _want_ , he doesn't, but instead of 'no' all he manages to emit is a gasp and a groan.

"Like that, don't you, like being fucked over the sofa like a slut?" Victor has his arm around his middle, practically pulling him into his lap. Sherlock writhes around, pleading noises escaping his mouth which Victor probably mistakes for arousal. A few more thrusts and his orgasm is wrenched out of him, while he gasps and his fingers dig into the sofa. Victor fucks into his pliant, limp body until he spends himself inside of him, and then he pulls wetly out of him. Sherlock winches and mewls a bit pathetically and falls face first into the couch, feeling more like a washed out rag than anything else.

He breathes. In. Out. In. Out. He can hear rain falling outside. Pat pat pat against the window. In. Out. In. Out. Pat. Pat. Pat. His heart thuds against his chest, his entire body aches, and his lips are chapped and red. Pat. Pat. In. Out. He tries to move his arms and pull his pants up, but he finds that he can't move anything at the moment. Victor behind him, the whish of pyjamas as they're pulled up his legs. An old t-shirt thrown over the arm of the sofa.

"Mmm. That was great," he says. "Clean that up, would you." Or something. Sherlock can't be sure. There is a dull pounding in his ears.

Victor disappears for a moment and Sherlock is grateful for the few minutes to pull himself together and wipe his own semen off the couch. It will still be obvious to anyone with a pair of eyes and a decent sense of smell, he thinks, while he rubs it off and throws the offending garment on the floor. But Victor has never really cared about who knows.

When he comes back in a fresh set of pyjamas and hair roughly combed, Sherlock has his own pants and jeans on and his shirt is buttoned. If only he could change his clothes and wipe all evidence of being fucked by Victor off his body. But it still clings to him, like sweat, and he would be able to feel it even if he scrubbed himself raw.

"Drink that, if you want," Victor gestures towards the alcohol Sherlock wants to laugh. He almost does, but instead the manic laughter that threatens to spill, ugly and bitter, from his lips, emerges in a short, sharp chuckle.

"I bet she's stupid," he says, lighting a cigarette right in the middle of Victor's sitting room.

"Do you," Victor replies, uninterested. It makes Sherlock want to punch him.

"Yes. I—why her? Why are you—I don't understand, Vic, what about...what about..." The words jumble on the edge of his tongue and he ends up not saying at all, really. Victor stares at him from where he is standing in front of the window, looking quite confused.

"What about what?" he asks.

"Your requirements from a relationship are predominantly satisfaction of your sexual urges, yes?" Sherlock is suddenly standing up, words sharp and sharp and furious as he says them. "I gave that to you, didn't I? You wanted someone to conveniently fuck, and I let you. I fail to understand why you need an additional partner when you could have had me whenever you wanted. I demanded very little reciprocation from your part, many would say I am an ideal mate in that sense. Then why, Victor?" he threw his arms out, gesturing to everything, the flat, university, that bloody fucking omega that he's courting, all of these things around him that seem designed to torment him.

Victor stares. "What the hell are you talking about?" he demands, stepping closer. "What the hell is this," he says again, sounding marginally calmer. "Sherlock, explain."

"Since when have you ever needed me to talk," Sherlock screams, and picks up the bottle and hurls at the wall. It makes a screeching, terrible noise as it shatters on impact and there's alcohol and broken pieces of glass everywhere. It smells like a pub suddenly.

"What the fuck," Victor seethes, and then suddenly he's shoving Sherlock's coat into his chest and saying, "Get out. Get out of this flat. What the hell is wrong with you, call your brother, I don't care, just get out."

Sherlock is frozen by this sudden cruelty and is unable to say something until Victor is pushing him towards the door.

"You—"

"Honestly, Sherlock, you're right, you were a good shag, and don't take this the wrong way, but you're _fucked up_."

Good shag. Good shag? Sherlock should say something. Hit him. Threaten to tell that vapid bitch that her boyfriend has been cheating on her for months but his mouth is unbearably frozen.

"Don't—I thought—" his fingers are shaking uncontrollably for some reason.

"You thought what," suddenly Victor stops, one arm stretched out beside him where his palm is against the door. His eyes are cold and his mouth an unyielding, hard line. "Thought I was in love with you, you loved with me, what? It was just sex, Sherlock, I had a good time, you had a good time, that's really all there was. Don't make it something you're not. And I thought you didn't give a shit about stuff like that. You don't, do you?"

He doesn't. Does he? Sherlock looks down at his coat in is arms, at Victor's disbelieving expression, feels his throat swell uncomfortably. Of course it was just sex. Sherlock knows that. And why on earth would he love Victor? He doesn't want to be loved. He just wanted a friend. That's what Victor was, right? A friend?

"No," he says, his voice shaking a little. "No of course not."

"Good. Glad we sorted that out." Then he pulls Sherlock away from the door, opens it, and then gestures outside with his arm. "I think you should leave. Ashley will be here any moment."

"It's raining," Sherlock says, and he could kick himself, because isn't _that_ an obvious comment.

Victor looks unconcerned. "Get an umbrella," he answers, and then shuts the door in his face.

Sherlock stumbles for a few seconds on the steps outside before he manages to stop his body from trembling quite so much. The rain falls and it is already seeping into his hair, his collar, his feet. He stares at his coat and feels lost. He feels _lost_. What is he supposed to do now? The rain is in his eyes now and he has to blink repeatedly to get it out.

His throat feels odd. Swollen, as if...but he hasn't cried in years, and he's far too old now anyway.

The coat is already quite sodden in his arms but he slips it on all the same, grateful for the bit of warmth it provides. When he gets out into the street he is drenched in seconds, hair plastered to his forehead and rainwater seeping into his shoes. How idiotic of Victor to suggest he get an umbrella. Where will he find an umbrella? Lying on the road?

He shivers. The rain falls. He knows his way well enough around London, even though he's been in the city only a few times, but he stands still, letting himself get wet, for an unforgivably long period of time because his brain seems to not be working. As if on cue, a sleek black car pulls up on the side of the road.

Sherlock rolls his eyes, but walks towards it all the same, tumbling into the warmth of car.

"You're a bloody annoying twat," he tells Mycroft, which he knows Mycroft will translate into _Thank you for coming I'm a bloody mess and I'm falling apart._

Mycroft's fingers tap against the wheel, and he looks at Sherlock in the rear mirror, grey eyes piercing and all-knowing, reminding him of younger days, skinned knees, Mycroft's careful fingers bandaging injuries, reading him pirate stories. "Where shall we go, then?" he asks.

"Take me home," Sherlock says, in a quiet voice, and curls up as small as he can in the back seat, as if he can physically make himself disappear.


End file.
